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Classified US Intel Budget Revealed Via Powerpoint
Atario writes "In a holdover from the Cold War when the number really did matter to national security, the size of the US national intelligence budget remains one of the government's most closely guarded secrets. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the highest intelligence agency in the country that oversees all federal intelligence agencies, appears to have inadvertently released the keys to that number in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation now posted on the website of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the presentation, it seems that the total budget of the 16 US intelligence agencies in fiscal year 2005 was $60 billion, almost 25% higher than previously believed."
http://www.dia.mil/contracting/briefs/Tuesday%20Ge neralSession%201130%20Everett.ppt
Yeah, that's no longer there.
It's now been posted by the Federation of American Scientists.
There are, however, a number of other contracting briefs and presentations posted here
70 % of the budget from FY95 to FY06 (up to August 31), in tens of millions of dollars,
third column for 100% :
95 1850 2643
96 1950 2786
97 1800 2571
98 1775 2536
99 2150 3071
00 1754 2506
01 2170 3100
02 3140 4486
03 4203 6004
04 4049 5784
05 4200 6000
06 3964 5663
So, from 1995 to 2005, an increase of 227%, correspondig to an annual increase of 8,5%.
And, from 2000 to 2005, an increase of 239%, corresponding to an annual increase of 19,1%.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Couple of points on your post:
1. How right you are about the no-bid, money-wasting thing--it's happening right now in Iraq, where millions have been wasted and in many cases, little reconstruction to show for it (sorry about the Coastal Post link--it was in major news publications a couple of weeks ago, but this is the most relevant recent hit in a Google News "Bechtel Iraq" search).
2. Isn't it sad that you have to say "probably," because in so many cases, it seems like these huge taxpayer decisions are made without anyone knowing about them?
u-bend
Question is, does it include the recent trend of outsourcing intelligence work ?
Um, yes, that's what this entire issue is about.
The blog that contains this article is called "The Spy Who Billed Me: Outsourcing the War on Terror", and the presentation itself is titled "Procuring the Future", and is entirely dedicated to contractors and contract acquisition, and the fact that the IC couldn't function or do its job without the variety of speciality contractors and services. The way the IC budget was "deduced" was by seeing dollars spent on contractors, and the knowledge that constituted "70%" of spending.
Yeah, the contract issue in general is one of concern, but, like all things, it's not simply "good" or "bad"; it has benefits, drawbacks, advantages, and problems, and the key is proper management of such resources. Keep in mind that all contractor issues aren't "outsourcing" in the way some like to think: it includes all manner of acquisition of capabilities and services, which also necessarily includes labor.